Hang Time (TV series)

Synopsis

The series centers on the exploits of the Deering Tornados boys' varsity basketball team of the fictional Deering High School in the Midwest. In the pilot episode, Julie Connor (Daniella Deutscher) transfers to Deering High after moving to Indiana from Chicago, Illinois. Although she meets some initial resistance from the male players on the team, Bill Fuller (Reggie Theus), the team's coach and a former player in the NBA, decides to make Julie the team's first female player after she shows off her basketball skills to the other members of the team – including star player Chris Atwater (David Hanson); Danny Mellon (Chad Gabriel), who develops a crush on Julie upon their first meeting; sometimes overconfident Michael Maxwell (Christian Belnavis) and country-bred Earl Hatfield (Robert Michael Ryan). Head cheerleader Mary Beth Pepperton (Megan Parlen) – whose father is a wealthy, self-made businessman – was initially jealous of Julie, particularly where her boyfriend for most of the first season (until the episode "Let's Get Ready to Rumble") Chris was concerned. Sam Morgan (Hillary Tuck), the Tornados' team manager, became Danny's girlfriend later in the season.

For the second season, Saved by the Bell executive producer Peter Engel was appointed as the series' showrunner, resulting in extensive changes to the show. About half of the main cast (with Deutscher, Parlen, Gabriel and Theus being the lone holdovers) was let go, with new characters being added in their place. Three new players were added – Josh Sanders (Kevin Bell), whom the team convinced to come out of retirement from competitive sports years after being prodded by his Little League coach to bean another player; Vince D'Amata (Michael Sullivan), a Chicago native who had previously served as an alternate on the team; Teddy Brodis (Anthony Anderson), Coach Fuller's godson and the son of a professional basketball player – while the peppy Amy Wright (Paige Peterson) became head cheerleader, replacing Mary Beth, who was promoted to team manager (a position that led to several blundering attempts at responsibility that Mary Beth often attempted to fix). Storylines also began to increasingly incorporate a balance of plotlines focusing on topical issues relevant to teenagers (such as drug use, underage drinking and sexual harassment) and life lessons about teamwork, alongside wackier comedic plots synonymous with other TNBC series.

The remainder of the series' run featured several cast changes, the most notable being the season four addition of former NFL player Dick Butkus as the Tornados' new coach, Mike Katowinski. Although the series ran for six seasons (and storyline references in earlier seasons implied or inferred that the characters of Mary Beth and Julie were closer to college age), Daniella Deutscher and Megan Parlen were the only two of the show's original cast members that stayed with the show throughout its entire run; Adam Frost (who played the Tornados' ace player and Julie's later on-again/off-again boyfriend, Michael Manning) and Amber Barretto (who played Kristy Ford, the team's head cheerleader following the unexplained departure of Amy and becomes involved in comedic sub-plots with Mary Beth later in the series' run) – who both joined the series in season three – are the other regular cast members to join the series in later seasons (and the only other cast members besides Deutscher and Parlen) to remain on Hang Time until the series finale. The fifth and sixth season students characters all graduated and went to their own colleges, but since Eugene's future college was not mentioned, Eugene was offered a job. Also Coach K's future was not also mentioned, but he stayed longer in Deering High coaching the boys' basketball team, which returned to normal of all boys. Later on, Coach K has transferred to a new university to coach for a men's basketball team and succeed. Meanwhile, since Julie graduated, one year later, Deering High has successfully created a brand new girls' basketball team and other high school followed up creating girls' basketball teams.

Cast